Calum Petrie reviews Assassin’s Creed Last Descendants – Locus #3…
The streets of Victorian London are a much darker place than the avenues of new York… as Pinkerton agent Tommy Greyling is finding out! Hot on the tail of a murderer, it seems there’s more to this mystery than meets the eye. Luckily for Tommy, he’s in the hands of the Assassin Brotherhood!
Assassin’s Creed: Locus continues the journey of Pinkerton agent Tommy Greyling as a newcomer to the Assassin and Templar conflict. Tommy has been informed of a legendary piece of Eden as yet the Templars are trying to get one step ahead of him, and succeeding. Tommy has travelled across the Atlantic to London, now he has a band of people helping him in his search; some of which are Assassins (Evie Frye & Henry Green), a London Met Chief Inspector and writer Mark Twain (because ….. why the hell not).
When the Animus is turned on we see the face behind the curtain and find out the body in the machine is a paraplegic teen named Sean. The boy struggles with the fact his ability to walk has been taken from him and now the Animus frees him from the torment of reality, but at what cost?
The last issue ended with Tommy being stabbed in a confrontation with the Templar mob and left the issue on a cliff-hanger. This issue starts in the modern timeline and the teens of the new Animus project rush to see Sean in the infirmary. Natalya, worried for Sean, rushes into the infirmary only to find Sean willing to go back into the Animus so quickly after the shock of being stabbed forced him out of the simulation. When Natalya does not like the way the group are being treated she shows rebellious tendencies and more shocked when nobody else has her back.
We return to the London mission and find out that by the magic of an early stage stab proof vest Tommy Greyling is unscathed, apart from maybe a broken rib. This was rather anticlimactic, almost like a “get out of scenario free” card, though it would be rather difficult to keep up pacing if the character was hospitalised for the rest of the short series. The team regroup and pull their knowledge and want to rally the forces of the London Metropolitan police force to surround the British Museum and stop their targets from escaping. The plan falls apart when the Police are striking due to pay disputes and the team have to go it with their original numbers.
The jump back into the modern day shows the site Doctor, strangely off site in London, advising Sean stays out the Animus until she returns to the facility. The facility head Isaiah listens to the advice, wither he follows it or not is probably obvious. The team of teen subjects gather and talk about the earlier outburst; the remaining two bodies inform Natalya that they are aware of the strange requests. They made a pact to not question their objectives or what they are told to do; instead they will go along in case their illusion of free will and choice will be taken away. They would rather play the game of the facility staff and keep the happy front and not risk it becoming a full blown prison.
The final section of the issue returns to the teams search for the Templar group in the British Museum; they follow the not so subtle path of dead bodies and broken locks to find their culprits. The team are thrown obstacle after obstacle which keeps dwindling their number until Tommy is once again in a one on one chase with his mysterious Templar female. The issue comes to an end with Tommy rushing to pursue his target as both are in horse drawn carriages.
The issue (as the series so far) has been a mediocre telling of the kind of story you would expect from an Assassin’s Creed story. There has been nothing so far that has made it memorable; it is just the rehashing of a generic story found in the games. The biggest downside to this then is, the reader does not get to jump about and plan assassinations, so the interactive part of the series has been taken away from the reader. It is very by the numbers ad has not actually taken any risk, it is a large part of fan service to the die-hard fans of the series who want to know everything they can about all aspects of the Assassin’s Creed Universe.
The art style does take a lot of maturity out of the story and leaves the story feeling more light hearted even when confrontation is on the page. The story might of had more of an impact if the art style was similar to that of the “Black Cross” series, where the art style lends itself to the darker nature of those Assassin’s Creed stories.
Rating: 5/10
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Originally published November 16, 2016. Updated April 16, 2018.
